ArtisTree Landscape Designer Joe Mantkowski grew up in Southwest Florida, helping his dad with their growing landscape business. His lifetime of working around the area’s lush landscapes inspired Joe to seek a career in the green industry, and now as a successful landscape designer, he serves many of the region’s most discerning clients and luxury builders. When meeting with clients, Joe quickly gets to the pertinent questions of color and design preferences, then moves on to the Continue Reading
THE LITTE SCHEFFLERA WHO COULDN’T GROW UP
A homeowner recently invited us out to talk about re-landscaping her front yard. She wanted everything replaced except the row of scheffleras growing right up against her house. “I know they don’t look the best, but we’ve had them forever,” she said, looking at the sparse leaves on top. “Can’t you put some kind of fertilizer on them?” The problem is that her schlefferas had been trimmed to four feet for 18 years, when the poor things really wanted to grow to six or eight feet. And even that Continue Reading
YELLOW TABS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE: WHERE DID ALL THE BLOOMS GO?
Maria Muhlhahn, ArtisTree Purchasing Manager, FCHP, ISA Certified Arborist First, the brakes lights -- then a head turn. Yellow tabs have a way of slowing down traffic on the busiest streets in Florida. But there’s also a downside that admirers tend to forget: the Yellow Tabebuia is a spring bloomer, which means you’re going to absolutely adore it March and April and then just kind of forget about it after that. And that’s too bad, because the yellow tab should be hailed for several other Continue Reading
Q&ARTISTREE: AVOIDING A FLORIDA-FROST FRENZY
Q: Holy cryonics! My nephew told me if I watered my plants before a Florida freeze, they’d be as hard as a frozen theropod. If that’s the case, how do I protect my landscape investment from Mother Nature’s moods? A: Your nephew’s been watching way too many dinosaur movies. Well-watered plants have a more established root system and will survive low temps better than those that are drought-stressed. Plus, well-watered soil absorbs more solar radiation than dry. So here’s what you do. When a Continue Reading